So this one isn’t technically a music video so much as a video with music in it. It begins with Teng expressing an erstwhile fear of never becoming a great artist because it isn’t only about technical skills, creativity had to come from being an interesting person whereas Teng’s own life had been so ordinary. Fortunately, there were people who lived in this artist’s head, and one very beautiful and very powerful one who did not always have Teng’s best interests as a priority…but who could inspire hauntingly moody, powerful and beautiful music such as this.

In German there is a word betrachten which means giving something life, growth, and greater number when you give it attention. There’s something to be said for simply ignoring what isn’t constructive to address, something to be said for shutting down or shutting out what’s outright harmful, but not (in this instance) by me. (Though the philosopher Swift made a video lecture explaining the humanist existential concept of shaekitoff.) I believe art and fiction as a medium overwhelmingly often take what we’d rather eliminate within (and we can try, but nothing of the psyche truly dies) and put it outside where we can have more control over it, where we can watch what once festered in invisibility and silence, and transform or direct that force or focus more beneficiently. One does not become “enlightened” through figures of the light only, but by making the darkness conscious.

The mythic adversarial figure of Mircea (and the Mircean Firebird) may never be redeemed, even as much to the status of challenger—but I don’t consider it a glorification of evil necessarily to acknowledge the presence and nature of evil.

So come to me, my love
I’ll tap into your strength and drain it dry;
Can never have enough
For you, I’d burn the length and breadth of sky

For I must die for what I’ve done
A twist of fate, a desert sun
For I see what I destroy
(Sweet reflection knife into me)For I see what I destroy
I can see what I’ve begun

2. “Just Like Fire” by P¡nk

I keep mishearing a line in the chorus, “If I can light the world up for just one day” as “fucking, like, the world up for just one day“.

…That’s my only comment. It’s a song about being like fire and being different; if that’s not laethic, I don’t know what is!

3. “Wide Awake” by Katy Perry

This definitely isn’t a song I like, but I do like the visuals in the video. It speaks to me especially of some more contemplative Dark Laethas: martial and strategic Alaria, hypercritical Artois, competitive Azure and healer Alma.

4. If I could find the official music video for “Indestructible” by Alisha’s Attic, I would have included that too for the CGI animation from 1997. The song generally gives me feels of the Laethas Ava and Alma’s sisterhood, and also a rare and harshly defensive side of the human Arabella—that I think of as Traumabella (as Mircea’s ex-lover, and Only Human, some vestigial habits of living with evil I have heard called “fleas”.)

At least here is “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles.

Retro-futuristic sci-fi nostalgia about technology. LAETHIC AS HARK, HOLY HEARTS. For such an enjoyably campy video, too, the sound production has so much dimension.

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In my mystic life, I think it’s safe to conclude that the Dierne Pallis does not like me. It’s been thirteen months since the first heavy hint of that. I still haven’t figured out why that would be, or if that even is the case as I’d expect some limitations to come with that tension—and the most obvious one hasn’t. For instance, Lilybell’s been around a lot, no trouble.

My darling favorite marshmallow peep!

And in my laity life, I still include the Dierne when speaking the litany, still keep the Dierne in mind when I make small efforts to enjoy life sometimes, still explore the Dierne’s symbolic associations…Well, what’s supposed to happen with all of those, when a faery sovereign mystically dislikes someone who speaks and thinks and lives the ‘faith with that one in it? Should a fresh canker sore form on my tongue for every time I dared to speak the title? Must I commit to an ascetic life, with respect to joy being the domain of the Dierne—uh-oh, communicative consent is the Dierne’s domain, too, do I live among corporeal people without regard for that from now on too? (Better to keep that a secular value.) Do I stay away from star shapes and diamond shapes for religious reasons?

I get the sense that the Dierne really doesn’t want a personal relationship with, but would still preside over eir domains that I’m living in. Or, I expect at least that much, and if that’s not the baseline compromising way of it then I should make something diernic and dedicatory for the sole purpose of desecrating that thing. Because I’ve already asked why, nicely, with genuine curiosity, several times. If I wanted a religion that arbitrarily demanded I make life purposelessly difficult for myself under the silently judgmental gaze of a spiritual lord, I’d’ve stayed Catholic.

Life is difficult, though (…wrote the literate Anglophone with internet access.) Sometimes that’s an outright burden, other times I have the privilege of reframing that difficulty as an opportunity or challenge.

*

Maybe if I could drive, I’d appreciate another level of interconnectedness with the city, or some awareness of my body as I wrestle with the steering and pedals. The way I’ve watched some people extend themselves into their cars is almost transhumanist.

When I was very young and somewhat smaller than I am today, I was always a passenger. I would be ushered into a machine full of cushioned seats, and doors with rubber at the edges that sealed them shut, and a movie would play at every window of the world passing by, and finally I’d get out of that room and find myself magically teleported to a new place. I’d watched the same movie run outside the window enough times that I should have had it memorized, but I never put in the effort: it was just a movie, and not even a favorite one. I didn’t process the turns, or the lifts over the bumps; in The Car, I’d take it as sitting still.

It wasn’t until I was 17 that I took the jeepney and train route alone for the first time. I sensed that my sibling had fallen into a grump, before I left: at not much older, ey’d been flown abroad for university and had to figure it all out alone. The both of us had taken the commute route together enough times. I should have known it by then, so ey’d argued over the phone to our parent. And I’d agreed, and I very much wanted to go pet-sit because I like animals, and all the young protagonists in all the books I’d read were never so troubled at wandering another dimension of reality—one city to another ought to have been easy.

I still felt as though I was going to die if I set foot out the door. And then, several foot-sets out the door and into a jeepney, that I wouldn’t recognize the train station if I watched for it. I felt as though I’d miss my stop when everyone and the driver had left for theirs, and that the jeepney would keep rolling into and through a wormhole in the fabric of spacetime where everything gets stretched out into some void cosmic darkness, and that I’d die that way. And then that, if I asked the jeepney driver one more time if this was the station, that ey’d take on a snappish tone answering no, and then my feelings would be hurt…and I would die. From that. Somehow.

My one parent called me anxiously on my cel, said not to go pet-sit for my sibling’s friend after all because the commute would be full of smog and bumping into strangers, and what if I contacted lung cancer or got mugged or the weather was bad or I lost my way? As I was already halfway there, comfortably within my bearings, it was too late to warn me off.

Since then, I’d found a lot to like about commuting. To be sure, it’s exhausting, body and fumes; the train’s always getting more expensive (I can’t say enough how lucky I am to keep up), inclement weather isn’t always enjoyable, so much can go differently in crowd movement and/or machinery that I can’t get to where I meant to be exactly when I meant to be, and while the vast majority of commuters are really just trying to get from one place to another…even after having gained a tolerance for crowds, there’s a few I wish I hadn’t been quite so near, and that wasn’t even traumatic (which is always a possibility.) It’s far more of a privilege than it is a virtue for me to have gotten past my fears and maladaptive sensitivities, to have the funds to even travel, and to be part of the majority of the population that’s ambulatory. Subway elevators in my city are very narrow; subway escalators are very steep and very very narrow. More vulnerable people still have to fight for this practice, whether the approach is sacred urban paganism or (more likely) secular utilitarianism—even in a developed nation. In my offline social circles, walking and the commute is the resort of the almost-destitute. Nobody does that for fun in this city. To be a commuter, especially a pedestrian, is so pedestrian.

Maybe one day I’ll have the time to learn to ride a bike, or the money to get my license and a Volkswagen beetle painted red and spotted black, and I’ll explore the transhumanist aspect and declare myself half machine (at least while traveling—Maybe similarly, if I need to be somewhere I’m not familiar with, I surf Google maps on my phone, which I couldn’t have done as easily in the 90s.) Maybe one day I’ll appreciate the childhood luxury of being chauffered, in that cushioned film reel room with the dreadfully chilly wind. I remember that time and feel only this queasy revulsion at such powdered-and-perfumed helplessness.

I know this city (and the next one over) well enough, and the flow of the travel well enough, that I feel as though I become it when I travel and it becomes me. To learn the art of the commute meant more personal power, and freedom. I do it when I have to, when I have a responsibility to, and things go wrong—but when, where, and how is a decision nobody else makes for me. Beyond that, the passing of the world outside isn’t merely a movie anymore. It’s a reason to catch sunshine, toasting my skin and filling me with life, or else burning and sweltering. It’s the way it glints off the skyscraper-scape of the business district, where the sidewalks are almost pavilions. It’s the smells of street vendor’s food frying, and a nearby chocolate factory, and a sort of oceanic version of petrichor riding in a gust from the bay. It’s the steampunk technology of the jeepney drivers—cooling fans, pull-stop lights and horns on a literal shoestring—army vehicles deconstructed and neon-painted and rainbow-beribboned in times of peace, and sitting up front with a co-commuter and eir bamboo cage of live chickens. It’s a memory of a Japanese superstition (overheard from a non-Japanese friend of a non-Japanese friend, who’d been there, I can’t add “or so they said” because I was there with them in Tokyo but couldn’t speak a word of Japanese,) concerning train spirits that may take offense at commuters using their phones, and my now knowing by what national partnership the main rail came to be in my own city, and wondering. I don’t know what’s poetic about buses, but I’ll think of something later maybe.

On occasion, it’s feeling cramps around the hamstrings and having a pack of salty batter-fried peanuts for dinner when I get home because I’m too tired from traveling to cook. Compared to my youth in The Car, I don’t feel the same revulsion at having a room to call home. I think everyone ought to have a way to stay out of the rain, where richer people won’t prod you with a stick for trying to sleep just because the sidewalk doesn’t look nice with people lying down on it (as though there were always somewhere else to go!) It’s only a thought: I’m not given what I call home by right, but by luck. And not a small amount of express entitlement.

the Dierne Pallis should be here, too: in the room called home, in the natural light from the window, in the mechanical breeze (from that spinny thing sounds like an admirer), in the box of winter that keeps the ice cream sandwiches that I eat in my bed—in that last one, the option of that, or batter-fried peanuts, or groceries that have been stored and just need a bit of cooking and have actual nutrition. To have options! To choose what you want!

Until everyone has at least that much, though, my headcanon Pallis continues to wander.

To the Dierne Pallis, the Pedestrian, the Streetwalker, the Wanderer. When one in destination longs for another, may you lend them your comet’s tail. Keep us lofty wealthy restless ’til we uplift those who have fallen where the pavement breaks. The ways within the City between the Cities are yours, the rush of the hour, the press of the crowd. Hold us together and keep us apart. This I pray.

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a Short Guide to the Otherfaith Gods

with descant divergences

the Clarene. King of Western Faery. God of personal sovereignty, writing systems, architecture, especially tall architecture, sustainable agriculture, ethical animal husbandry (including slaughter), Mondays, and scientific progress. Sometimes features as fairy princess Claire Clarice Clarene, referred to affectionately as 'the Clairies'.
the Ophelene. God of boundaries and Fridays. Fusion of the Clarene and the Ophelia.
the Ophelia. God of rivers, rainstorms, time, depression, and death. Associated with the colour blue, cleansing, Wednesdays, and the granting of wishes. As a god of decay, the Ophelia also presides over the Wastes, a poverty-stricken area of Western Faery.
the Laethelia. God of oceans, happiness, Saturdays, and restoration. Fusion of the Ophelia and the Laetha.
the Laetha. God of technology, virtual reality, passion, rebellion, Tuesdays, and destruction without recovery. Refers to a number of fission gods: Arabella, Asier, Artois, Alaria, Alma, Ava, Azure, Arrise, Aletheia 000, Aletheia 001, Aletheia 002, Aletheia 003, Aletheia 004, Aletheia 005...through to Aletheia 099. When united, they form the Laetha Firebird.
the Aithe. More commonly known as the Liathane or (identically pronounced) the Eighth. God of outsiders. Fusion of the Laetha and the Dierne.
the Dierne. God of air, consent, popularity, mirrors, pleasure, kink, sex workers, Sundays, and addiction. Ensures that one's pursuit of enjoyment does not rely on the exploitation of others. Smells the foulness of rapists, and avenges their victims.
the Darene. More commonly known as the Darren. God of doubt, curiosity, mediation, Thursdays, and contemplation. Associated with crows, stags, and the Little Sun of Truth. Fusion of the Clarene and Dierne.

Frequently Mentioned Others

Desiree. Seneschal of the Clarene. Facilitator of order and fulfilling commitments. Mallory. Minister of the Ophelia, technically daughter of Lyra. Spirit of decay. Althaea Altair. Oracle of the Laetha, presides over...I don't know why she'd be around here, actually. Presides over monasticism? Lilybell Vega. Voice of the Dierne, brings death to contentedness.

Princess Irene. Beloved of the Clarene (erratically.) Presides over the principality of the sky-dome, privilege-checking, and redemption. Adilene. Beloved of the Clarene. Presides over the prerogative of every autonomous life form to defy the gods. Lyra. Beloved of the Ophelia, may or may not return that affection. Spirit of deserts and the hunt. Really knows how to party. Cobb. Beloved of the Ophelia. Lady of spiders, crawling up wells and waterspouts, clothesmaking, co-consciousness, and cutting things with threads and wires. Steampunk William. Human ex-boyfriend of Laetha Aletheia 003, ex for a reason. Spirit of interpersonal abuse. Gods help me.

Odile 04. Mech manufactured by the Ophelia. Steampunk William's widow, or does her best to be. Probably has a mech sister who is currently a ball of blue flame, Odile Number Unknown. Alynah Blake. Jackalope girl. 'Trickster' puts it mildly. Leads a rabble. Oft invoked by swearing by Alynah's Ears, not in the sense of oathing so much as cussing. 1284594. Bookkeeper with a specialty in criticism. 4484593. Bookkeeper with a specialty in literary journalism, and verboten casual interest in grassroots new media. Dahlia. Peg-legged seafaring adventurer. Rarely sighted. Does her own thing. Crew includes a young sea witch and an elderly sea witch? Wee Gran. Grandmother Wednesday of the Wastes.

Faebles

Riddlewyrms. Smaller spirits of anxiety and depression. Selfish. Thieves of treasures without value to anyone other than who they stole it from. Aquatic marsupials something like eel and something like solefish. They keep away so-called treasures in their pouches for no reason. Riddlecats. Labyrinth-dwelling winged cats. Associated with both discernment and mob unintelligence. Mistshroom. More like a phenomenon than a plant or animal; a nihilistic cloud.

Heartwrench. A broadsword with personality. Unnamed Elf Arrow. Exactly what it says.